


A Little Bit in Love

by orphan_account



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, M/M, REALLY REALLY ANGSTY YO, just need perico okay, now that it's actually half-canon i may actually die from perico want, so here you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Nico becomes one of the many who die for Percy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit in Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlace/gifts).



> Or, the one where I saw fanart on Tumblr (http://minuiko.tumblr.com/post/64085472008/im-a-mess) and then typed this out in an hour because I'm a masochist. Gifted to blasphemy (moonlacing on Tumblr) because her post unwittingly made me write this. (And post this, like, ten days after I initially wrote it.)

"Nico, you idiot! Get back!"

Nico laughed hoarsely, a broken, bitter sound, broken prematurely by a gasp of pain. "It's too late, Percy."

"You damned fool, why'd you take that knife for me? You knew it was poiso - shit, Nico, over here, behind the car. Stay here, I'll go get help - "

"Percy. It's too late." Nico grabbed Percy’s hand, not letting go.

The son of Poseidon halted in his tracks.

"I'm the son of the god of the Underworld, Percy. I know when I'm dying." Nico laughed again, humorlessly.

Percy dropped to his knees. "Don't say that, dammit. Here, let me stop the bleeding..."

Nico watched, a strange expression on his suddenly very young face, as Percy ripped off a part of his shirt to hold against the gaping wound in Nico's side.

"You okay?" Percy murmured. "Hang in there, I've got you."

"Percy." Nico inhaled sharply, pain flitting briefly over his face before disappearing. "Percy. When I'm gone, do you promise to remember me, just once a year?"

"Shut up, Nico.

"Just once a year, it's all I'm asking. You'll have the rest of your life for Annabeth."

Percy's hands, which were bandaging Nico's wound a moment earlier, stilled. "Annabeth?"

Nico's face, normally drawn with bitterness, looked almost tender. "I promised myself I wouldn't ask for anything, I don't deserve it anyway, but please - "

"Nico, what in Hades are you talking about?"

The younger boy's lips twisted in a half-hearted grimace. "You really don't know, do you?" He asked softly.

Percy thought he had never seen anyone as vulnerable as the boy in his arms looked now.

Nico’s eyes fluttered closed. His whole body stilled. For a second, Percy thought the son of Hades was gone.

Then his eyes opened again. The expression in them, normally cold and sharp, seemed dulled, mellow, accepting.

“Percy,” Nico breathed, a rare hint of laughter unlike himself in his breath. “I think I may have been a little bit in love with you.”

* * *

 For a long time afterwards, Percy sat there, hugging the limp body of Nico di Angelo to his chest, tears running down his face, whispering, over and over, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“I didn’t know.”

* * *

 The year after the second Great War had ended, two demigods, one a tall, blond girl and the other an even taller dark-haired boy, climbed up Half-Blood Hill. A memorial had been erected next to Thalia’s pine tree with the names of all that had died in both wars. Near the end of the list, one name stood out from the others. It radiated a dark, melancholy magic, one that was felt only around a certain son of Hades.

Both teenagers knelt at the memorial. They sat, staring at the staggering amount of names, and the one name in particular. After a while, the girl put a hand on the boy’s arm, stood up, and walked back from where they came from.

The boy slowly reached out a hand, running his fingers along the grooves of the name. Nico Di Angelo.

Percy had grown up. Years of fighting had changed him, turned him into another man, cold and unforgiving. Bitter.

But now, as his hand touched the name of the person who hated him, loved him, then died for him, none of that fierceness showed.

Slowly, as if it took all the strength he didn’t have, not anymore, he stood up. He wiped the wetness on his face with the back of his hand. And he turned away and walked back down the hill.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been like. A year? Since I last wrote fanfiction, and it turns out I come back with the same fandom I started in, so it's oddly fitting, I guess. Definitely not my best or favorite work, but I just really needed angst and Perico.  
> Also, yes, that one line was from Les Miserables.


End file.
